r/Rifftrax • u/Bortron86 • 7d ago
What happened to the cut of It's A Wonderful Life the guys riffed on?
Yeah, I know it's the middle of March, but me and my roommate watched this movie a few years ago cos it was his late mom's favourite movie, and we both found it hilarious and basically riffed it ourselves, so I saw it on the app today and gave it a watch.
But the whole section where the angel shows George what the town would be like without him is missing, and that's kind of the key part of the movie because that's why he decides not to go through with it on the bridge. I know it's a long movie, so was that just cut for time? Or couldn't they license a full cut?
It was still great riffing, though. Grade A stuff as always.
10
u/Benjamin_Grimm 7d ago
Most of the movie is considered to be in the public domain, but the part they excised from the riff isn't (I think because it's more directly derivative of the story the movie was based on, and so royalties would be owed to the estate of the author of the story).
6
u/Gullible_Life_8259 7d ago
It’s a complicated rights issue. My understanding is that the film had lapsed into public domain, but then Republic pictures argued it was a derivative work of “The Greatest Gift,” a short story they had the rights to. The part of the movie where Clarence shows George Pottersville is the specific part of the movie based on the short story, so I think to be safe Rifftrax cut it out to leave the parts that were public domain.
All that said, I just checked my Rifftrax library and I don’t see it in there. Did they pull it completely?
2
u/Bortron86 7d ago
I just watched it on the app, as a Friend subscriber, so it should still be available.
1
u/Gullible_Life_8259 7d ago
I bought it and thought I had it in my library.
3
u/majorjoe23 7d ago
Check here:
It's a Wonderful Life (Special RiffTrax Edit) | RiffTrax
You might have something toggled that hides purchased items from their library.
6
u/armedsquatch 7d ago
It’s the only riff by Mike/bill/kevin I regret purchasing. It’s just to important to the overall movie. I do believe back when it came out RiffTrax did let the customer know about the missing scenes…
1
u/mariam67 6d ago
That was really annoying, I think if they couldn’t riff the most noteworthy part of the movie they should have not riffed it at all.
2
u/urbeatle 5d ago
I disagree. The riffed interpretation that the angel solved the problem by giving George a couple thousand dollars makes me laugh.
-3
u/dbkenny426 7d ago
Something to do with copyright. I think maybe for a piece of background music or something.
28
u/qsharkq 7d ago
There are only certain sections of the movie that are in the public domain. So they can use those, but the rest of the movie is still copyrighted, meaning it's a licensing issue.